OWP liVe REPORT

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How to crack the execution code in digital transformation

D I G I TA L

Professor of Innovation and Strategy Michael Wade and Professor of Strategy and Digital Transformation Didier Bonnet identify recurring key offenders standing between you and the success of your digital transformation in their OWP liVe session ‘Hacking digital’. The failure rate of digital transformation initiatives is a staggering 87%, according to research led by Professor Wade. While strategy is not easy, he said, the real issues seem to lie in the execution.

Together with Professor Bonnet, he engaged with participants to come up with five ways to improve digital execution in companies.

just harder to justify the ROI with a single metric.”

Build digital skills without alienating staff

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Focus on digitization AND digital transformation

One participant pointed out that people do not know how their jobs will evolve with digital transformation; HR needs to make greater efforts to reassure people they will still have a job in the new digital sphere, or you get resistance. “These people create difficulties embedding change — even with off-the shelf, ICT-led transformation,” he said.

This way you can better position yourself in the future and get to where you want as a business, Wade said. While getting carried away with investing in start-ups might feel good and doing digital for the sake of digital was an easy trap to fall into, these were circular approaches. Describing how playing the long game went hand in hand with making a clear distinction between digitization and digital transformation, Wade said: “Digitization is taking something that's analog, physical and paper-based and digitizing it. You can get a short-term benefit from this; you can show pay back and ROI and there's a lot of value to be had.”

DIDIER BONNET IMD Professor of Strategy and Digital Transformation

Wade, in response, insisted that “change management needs change”.

Traditionally a linear eight-stage process, he said of change management: “I don’t think it is very effective today; it takes too long and something will inevitably come up – a pandemic or a political disaster — and you have to go back to step one.” Companies need to realize they have three sub-sets of employees: digital natives,

failure rate of digital transformation initiatives 87%

MICHAEL WADE IMD Professor of Innovation and Strategy

“But the real longer-term value is going to come from the transformation. It’s